Deserts of Hope
by Elphaba Descending
Summary: The Order locks him up, and so, Harry flees.
1. Chapter 1: Half a Chance

*** **D** **isclaimer:** All of the wonderfully familiar characters places and ideas belong to JK Rowling. She is the creative genius, I'm just nobody.

Chapter 1: Half a Chance

"I'm so sorry Harry, I could only grab your wand."

Harry gives Hermione a tight nod. He tries not to think about his father's invisibility cloak, his firebolt from Sirius, or his homemade photo album from Hagrid.

It's been nearly two months, and his wand is warm and welcoming in his hand. Unexpectedly filled with irrepressible joy he gives it a wide wave as he did the very day he bought it, but only a few pitiful sparks shimmer in the air.

They both stare at the wand in horror. He knew that his magic was getting weaker but this..."Looks like I'm leaving at just the right time." He says quietly to Hermione.

She hands him a dainty bag filled with British pounds as well as a dark brown wig with straight bangs and butterfly clips in it. It's definitely a girl's wig. He hugs her fiercely. "Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?" She grips him back just as tightly. They do not say goodbye. It feels too final.

Hermione lowers him gently out the window. His feet have barely touched the ground when he hears-

"Hello Professor Lupin!" loudly and brightly.

Harry flattens himself along the wall. Grimmauld Place's ancient paint flakes off onto his skin and hair. He stifles a sneeze -don't look down, don't look down-

"Hermione? I keep telling you to call me Remus. Where's Harry?"

-don't look down, _please_ don't look down

"He's in the bathroom Pro- Remus."

"Okay, thank you, maybe I can catch him by surprise."

Harry can't see, naturally, but it is obvious that something in Hermione's face must give her away when Lupin says "You know it's for his own good right?"

"Of course," Hermione says.

"Run!" Hermione whispers down to him six rapid heartbeats later.

He does not need to be told twice. After all he's been running his whole life.

-HP-

The gentle rumble of the bus is making him nauseous. He does not want to think about where he is going, he does not want to think about those he left behind.

"Excuse me Miss?" A stranger woman takes the seat next to him. She has kind eyes, but Lupin had kind eyes too.

"Yes" he says in his squeakiest voice. He pulls his arms tightly around himself.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, I just, here" She hands him a frilly handkerchief. He touches his face, his fingers come away wet. He hadn't realized he was crying.

"Thank you" he manages to say through his embarrassment.

Then he remembers he's pretending to be a girl. Girls are allowed to cry. Suddenly he can't hold himself back. Quiet sobs shake his too thin frame. He hadn't cried this hard when his godfather Sirius had died, he hadn't cried this hard when Cedric had died in his arms. The last time he had cried this hard he was a little boy and had finally grasped that his parents were never coming to save him. They were dead. Dead meant left alone forever.

When he finally glances up he is surprised to see the woman is still there. "I don't know anything about your story, but you are not alone." She grips his hand tightly and gets up.

He gapes after her. He hopes he hadn't let something slip while he was ...acting. He hopes no one obliviates the uncommonly kind woman for his loose mouth, but he knows how useless hope is.

She left something on the seat. It's a pamphlet for a battered women's shelter in Crew.

-HP-

Harry had thought he was jumping on random buses but he is not surprised when he somehow ends up in Crew. His pamphlet is well worn by now. He keeps staring at the women's smiling faces. Their palpable relief is not for the cameras.

The shelter's name is Providence.

They make him sit down almost as soon as he walks in the doors. Gentle hands raise his feet up and ice them. He hadn't noticed how swollen they were. They try to call a doctor for him but he must refuse; the doctor will discern that he is not a girl.

He is unable to explain to them that the ache in his feet is nothing to the ache in his heart.

He stays only one night. They are muggles. They cannot protect him. It's still the best uninterrupted sleep he has had in too long.

In the morning, he asks about other shelters in Crew. He doesn't plan to stay at any of them but if the Order manages to track him here they'll think that is where he went next.

As he's turning away his conscience rebels, there are pregnant women here, and he is no longer naive enough to believe the Order would never harm a pregnant woman for their cause. "There are people after me-"

"Don't worry we won't tell them where you are." Interrupts the lady in white with feather earrings behind the front desk.

'You won't have a choice' he thinks to himself. He grips his useless phoenix and holly wand, but turns around and runs. Again.

-HP-

He hadn't perceived how much the thought of the shelter was keeping him going nor how much it would drain him to walk away from Providence. He is tired and dizzy all the time now. For the first time in his journey he takes a train. It reminds him of the first time he had gotten on a train at age eleven. Back then he had thought that he was going to a wonderland, now a train was taking him to almost certain death.

When he steps off the train it is raining. It is not an omen, it is not.

He goes into the nearest clothing store and buys a blue cloak for the rain and a new shirt. His old shirt was getting uncomfortably tight. Even with no appetite and on the run he still eats better than he ever did at the Dursleys. The clerk at the counter gives him a funny look. Belatedly he realizes that he had automatically shopped in the men's section. He gives the man an absent smile and leaves quickly.

The rain washes away all traces of his passing.

-HP-

He chucks his wig at some bushes and walks right through the formidable wards. Harry almost smiles. Doubtless the Order will never understand the opportunity they had lost.

He follows the pull of his magic throughout the overly decadent manor. Marble, mirror-like wood floors, reflections of crystal chandeliers, Harry drips rainwater onto them all. No one stops him. Between his casual approach and the hood of his blue cloak they probably do not recognize who he is.

He stops outside a set of ornate double doors, raises his hand to knock, and hesitates. He groans. Harry cannot _believe_ himself, the time to turn back had long since passed, but still ...he wants to live. He lets out a slow breath and gently leans his head on the door. 'Half a chance' he thinks, he is exchanging his life and everything he had ever stood for to give someone he will never meet _half_ a chance. He holds onto his queasy stomach. A puddle of muddy water is forming under his feet.

Harry does not knock, he shoves the doors open.

"Hello Tom."


	2. Chapter 2: Entangled Webs

-Chapter 2: Entangled Webs-

Harry dodges within the kaleidoscope of spell-light slicing through the dusk until he reaches an area relatively clear of fighters. "Is anyone here!" he coughs out. The smoke of buildings set aflame was searing his throat and lungs.

Something grabbed his ankle. Harry whirled around to find a man nearly buried under the rubble of his collapsed home. "Help me" he wheezed.

Harry very carefully started vanishing the top portions of the collapsed house and worked his way down. Every second he stood there exposed and occupied felt like an age. He bit his lip, ' _concentrate._ '

A fresh burst of pain flared through his scar. Voldemort.

Harry slowly turned around to meet the murderer's gleaming red eyes. He tightened his grip on his wand and prayed it would hold despite the slippery mix of sweat and ash and entrails on his hands.

"Don't leave me here! PLEASE!"

 _"Avada Kadavra!"_

Harry dodged the sickly green light, but the curse was not aimed at him. The trapped man's pleading abruptly cut off.

Voldemort continued his leisurely stroll forwards as if nothing had occurred. "Ah, _much_ better don't you think?"

Harry took in the now sightless eyes and the limp hand still stretched out towards him. "You're a monster." Harry finally managed.

"Weeping for the muggles Harry? You've spent too much time with soft-hearted fools; don't you know they have no magic and no souls?"

Harry quickly lifted his head back up. "You're the only one here who has no soul!"

Voldemort shouted something in response but Harry was momentarily distracted by movement in the corner of his vision. A dueling pair had drifted close. One had a head of long glossy black curls -Bellatrix! His world narrowed with grief and fury. He had a perfect shot of her back. He lined up his wand, 'For Sirius' he thought.

The woman rolled suddenly, and now her opponent's oncoming spell was barreling straight for him. He twirled to the side to avoid the unknown curse, and froze. Voldemort had fired a spell too. Two unknown curses and no place to dodge.

" _Protego_!" Harry shouted, and made the shield as wide as he dared. Both spells sailed right through as if the shield wasn't even there.

Pain had him instantly rolling on the ground, writhing and screaming next to the body of the stranger he had failed to save. He neither noticed nor cared about the broken glass and filth grinding into his skin. All he could think was how sick he was of death and fighting.

-HP-

Harry tore his eyes open. A slightly different shield shimmered in front of his bare palm. His heart was beating a terrified tempo of 'live! live! live!'

It took him a moment to realize that the ground he was lying on was smooth wood whose pristine shine seemed almost mocking after the ruins of Privet Drive. Harry lowered his hand.

Clap… clap… clap. He twisted towards the sound to find Voldemort sitting in a high-backed chair. He stopped his unhurried clapping when Harry looked over, then leaned to one side and rested his chin on his fist as if he were bored, but his malicious gaze was anything but indifferent as he stared down at Harry.

"Impressive" Voldemort said from his throne, voice seething hatred, "but ultimately unnecessary."


	3. Chapter 3: Tell Me No Lies

-Chapter 3: Tell Me No Lies-

Not taking his eyes off Voldemort, Harry slowly sat up. His cloak was stiff as if it had dried muddy while he was wearing it. The dark wood floors stretched onwards. Even this close he could not identify what tree they were made from, the otherworldly planks radiating more menace than warmth.

Two figures stepped out of the shadow of the Dark Lord's throne: Lucius Malfoy on the Right, and Snape on the Left.

Voldemort starts twirling a too familiar wand around his fingers. Harry frantically pats himself down, but of course his wand is not there. "An enemy storms into my domain, what can I think but that we are under attack?" Harry's wand spins round and round. He cannot look away. It is all he has left in the world. "The grounds are searched, thoroughly, only to find that we are not, in fact, under attack."

"Next I think sabotage," The wand abruptly stops spinning. "but the reports I get back become more and more baffling." Voldemort does not sound confused. He sounds more and more angry. "You tampered with nothing, you accosted no one." He tosses it into the air and snatches it. "It finally occurs to me that this is all some clever distraction. So I send my spy out," Harry starts and looks at Snape. Did he tell them? Is the Order mounting a 'rescue' as they speak?

"Imagine my surprise when he tells me that not only is there _no_ plot, the impotent fools have no idea where you are." Harry lets out a breath.

"So tell me" Voldemort leans forward, spindly fingers grasping the arms of his throne, wand straining under a white knuckled grip."Why did you come here? But more importantly WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY WARDS!"

Harry tried in vain to wet his dry mouth. "I'm here because I need protection from the Order. I'm willing trade. I have information, not the least of which is the full prophesy."

Voldemort was silent.

"And what reason has you, Dumbledore's pet mongrel, escaping your leash?" Lucius at least sounded intrigued, Harry hoped that was a good sign.

"My reasons are my own."

"You stupid child! You utter imbecile! Do you think that this a game?" Snape burst out.

"Shut up Snape!" Hate: old, familiar, grounding. It buoyed him up in a world gone wrong. He focused his gaze on Snape. "The _Order_ turned against me, they shot spells at me day and night. They locked me up, they took my wand over this, and I had trusted them a whole lot more than I have ever trusted _you_." Harry rubbed his face. That had been more than he'd meant to tell them. That had been more than he'd meant to tell anyone. Somewhere inside him there was a little boy who would always be ashamed when the people who were supposed to care for him, didn't. When he looked back up, Lucius was giving Snape a Look.

Lucius rolled his eyes, "Surely even you can see our dilemma, if your little secrets –"

"I'm willing to offer my own oath." Harry looks Voldemort in his crimson eyes "That I will not knowingly cause harm to you and yours except in self-defense. I want out of this war, I'm done."

"What a disgustingly high opinion of your own worth you have Potter." Snape again.

Voldemort simply watches, waiting. Unexpectedly, the whole thing seemed a bit staged: Lucius, the blonde voice of reason, and Snape, dark and untamed.

Voldemort finally speaks. "The wards."

"What about them?"

"You have somehow accomplished the nigh unheard-of deed of tampering with blood wards, MY blood wards."

"I just walked in. I assumed it was because of what happened in your father's graveyard." Unspoken was the blasphemous thought _we share blood now._

"Hogwarts under that bumbling idiot is not what it used to be" Lucius continues in an amused tone Harry no longer trusts. "You do not share blood with the Dark Lord, and even if you did, do you think that every cousin or two-bit relation can wrestle control of a manor's wards from its master?"

"I didn't do anything like that! All I did was walk in!"

"Show him"

"My Lord?"

" _Show Him!"_

-HP-

Harry hesitated before entering the memory, white wisps dancing just beneath his fingertips. He looked at the three looming figures in front of him searchingly,

Snape spoke up. His silken voice had an undercurrent of danger. "An odd moment to gain a modicum of self-preservation Potter, considering you've been unconscious for three days in the center of our Lord's audience chamber." Harry had thought he'd seen all of Snape's rages, but this icy fury was different. He was now hit with complete conviction that Snape had killed before, and that _this_ was the last face his victims had seen before death. Harry involuntarily jerked- his fingers brushed something cold, and the pensieve pulled him lovingly down into its depths.


	4. Chapter 4: Memory in a Bottle

Chapter 4: Memory in a Bottle

When the white mists cleared, Harry was standing next to memory-Lucius on the opposite side of the room he was just in. Lucius, Snape, and two men he only recognizes from a wanted photo: the Lestrange brothers, were clustered around a small table that had probably been intended for a scribe. Even though he was standing right next to them, Harry couldn't hear a word that was spoken, and the papers strewn on the table were blank. Harry blinked, he supposed Lucius must be an occulmens too.

Harry drifted away from the silent discussion and suddenly curious, looked around. He had been in this room three times already, yet this was his first chance to take it all in.

The room was long. There was a fire blazing in a blackened hearth along one wall where Nagini rested, and elaborate sconces seemingly writhing in the flickering light along the other. A narrow green and silver carpet spanned from the huge doors to the foot of Voldemort's seat.

Harry had never wondered what Voldemort was like off the battlefield, but if pressed he probably would have said that he acted every inch the aristocratic pureblood at all times. Harry couldn't have said why, especially considering Tom Riddle had been raised in a muggle orphanage.

Voldemort was lounging across his throne, one leg draped over a chair-arm, staring up at the ceiling, frowning. His casually held wand was tapping an almost hypnotic rhythm that ensured no one present forgot his threat. It was a pose at once terror inducing and disarmingly unguarded.

The two massive double doors across the chamber burst open, and with a heavy **Boom!** banged against the walls behind them.

In enters a person who cannot possibly be him, that person is all confidence and stormy rage. All Harry remembers feeling then, is fear.

One of the Lestrange brothers recovers from their surprise, and fires _"Incarcerus!"_ Harry draws his own wand, and collapses like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Harry's jaw drops; he fainted. In front of God, Voldemort, and Snape, _He fainted._

Luckily for Harry, the deatheater's spell never reached him. Halfway to where he laid completely defenseless, the spell ricochets off a deep red, almost black, barrier, back onto the caster, only the spell's effect was multiplied. Instead of binding ropes, Lestrange was wrapped in a fine wire that was only visible when it caught the light just right.

The man gulps, and a line of red appears around his throat.

Voldemort vanishes the lethal wire with a negligent wave of his hand. "Search the grounds, He cannot be alone!"

Snape and Lucius rush to carry out the order. The remaining Lestrange brother hurries to the sibling who is holding a hand to his wet throat, rivulets of blood staining his tunic. "Rodolphus let me see" he murmurs.

Louder, the man who must be Rabastan says, "May I ask why it is that you set the wards against my brother? The spell was nonlethal. We know that he is yours to kill."

"It was not I, the wards acted on their own."

"My Lord?" Snape had come back unnoticed into the room. He was bent, palms skyward on his knees, his expression obscured by a curtain of black hair. "Should something be done about the intruder?"

Voldemort's expression turned distant, as if he was remembering something long ago. "Are you going to beg me for his life?"

"No my Lord, I hate the Potter brat, I ask only to serve you."

"Leave him then, it looks to be a case of extreme magical exhaustion. He won't be waking up anytime soon."

Harry is starting to wonder how long this memory goes when Voldemort sits back in his throne with the regal airs Harry had first expected. "Shall I test my mastery of the Wards?" Snape, fetch me Pettigrew."

When Harry lays eyes on the cowering excuse of a man, he briefly forgets that this is just a memory, and lunges for his parent's betrayer, but the memory abruptly ends, and he is being pulled up and away.

"Wormtail" says a voice filled with malicious glee, "Curse me."

Screams are the last thing Harry hears before the mists swallow him whole.


	5. Chapter 5: Lost Voices

-Chapter 5: Lost Voices-

"So, do you still claim you have done nothing to the wards? What reason would you arrive before me magically exhausted, if not because you were playing with forbidden magics?"

Harry lifted his chin and straightened his stance. He would not repeat himself. He had learned over the years that people will only hear the truth if they want to. They will not listen to pleas; they do not care if you cry. Harry clenched his right fist, and stark were the words for any willing to see: _'_ _I must not tell lies.'_

"Do you think that you can bargain with me?" Voldemort's sudden cruel and malevolent laughter sent chills down Harry's spine. "Do you think that you're safe? Normally I would just tear all of your pitiful secrets from your mind, but there are other ways. Oh yes. I know that you've left your merry little band of blood-traitors, but can you sit there and watch them be tortured?

 _"Yes"_ Harry said with relish.

"All of them? Even your pet mudblood?"

Lucius reached behind the now empty throne and yanked out Hermione, bound and gagged, wrists trickling blood where she had struggled against the ropes, her normally wild bushy hair laying limp around her tear streaked face.

"Hermione!" Harry ran forwards and grabbed her arm to pull her behind him- but as soon as he touched her, she blew away like so much smoke. She had only been an illusion.

"So," Voldemort says, his voice oozing smug satisfaction, "here's _my_ bargain: Tell me what you did to the wards, and any other information I deem useful, and maybe, I won't watch you _starve_."

Harry realized then, that he had voluntarily placed himself under siege. He could not warn Hermione that she was in danger. The instant he stepped away from the protection of the wards, he was dead.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to swallow back the vile taste of self-disgust.

-HP-

"Hey Harry, you wanted to see to me?" The door snaps shut behind her with a pronounced _click_.

"Yeah." Harry stops pacing briefly to give Hermione a small smile. He'd already worn a path through the thick dust on the decrepit floors of Grimmauld Place. "I'm surprised they let you in here."

"I told them that I'll try to make you see reason." She lets out a small huff of laughter, "little do they know that I've never been able to convince you of anything once you've dug in your heels."

"That's just it 'Mione, I'm not sure."

"You're not?" She tried to catch his eye but he's too busy pacing to look at her. "You seemed pretty decided to me."

"That's because they're not giving me a choice! They have no right! It's my life! Mine! All I want is a minute to think. ...You like to think Hermione. "

"Yes Harry, I like to think" she says in a flat voice.

He turns and looks back at her. "I didn't mean anything by it 'Mione."

"I know Harry." She grabs him by the shoulders and makes sure he's looking into her brown eyes. "You know that you're smart too, right?"

"I know, I mean- " Harry lets out a long breath. "When I was a little kid, I used to lay awake at night and wonder why the Dursleys hated me, if there was something that I could do to make them like me, or what it would be like if my parents weren't dead, you know, little kid thoughts.

"It took me a while to realize that thinking always made things worse. So... I stopped.

"Your family hates you? Just go to sleep.

"Your own cousin wants to hurt you? Just run. It was simple: one foot in front of the other.

"By the time I got my Hogwarts letter, I was used to not thinking. I wasn't thinking 'this is big'. That magic changes things, and that it could change things that I _liked_." Softer, barely a whisper, he said, "I didn't realize that magic could change _me_. I couldn't even see that it already had." In a stronger voice, he says "But I know that you think Hermione, so I want to know, when you got your letter, were you scared?"

"No Harry, I wasn't scared."

"Looking back, I feel like I should've been scared."

"Because you're scared now?"

Harry didn't answer, so Hermione gently took one of his hands, and held on until it had stopped shaking.

-HP-

Harry holds his eyes closed for just a moment more, and imagines he can still feel her hands trying and failing to hold him together while the world ripped him in two.

Then Harry opened his brilliant green eyes, and there was murder in his gaze.

 _...You know Harry..._ The memory of Hermione continued to echo in his thoughts, but Harry was no longer listening.

"You know Tom" Harry said aloud, and with a thought, viciously summoned his holly wand from out of Voldemort's grasp.

 _...this doesn't have to change you..._

"If you think that I'm _less_ dangerous now, then you're a fool." Because nothing is more dangerous than someone with nothing less to lose.

Harry hissed sss" **NOW!** "sss in parseltongue, and the command echoed ominously throughout the chamber before a flood of snakes slithered in from every crack and crevasse in the walls, under the doors, even seeping from the ceiling, they came. Every snake he could reach on his four-day journey, and every snake that they could reach, and so on. From every direction, they came and quickly wrapped around Snape and Lucius until they looked like overburdened trees, the snakes hanging from their arms like misshapen fruit, fangs bared and dripping venom millimeters from their skin. Some tried to attack Voldemort too, but were rebuffed by the wards.

"There's a snake on every one of your followers in the manor. You can't hurt me, I can't hurt you, but we can _both_ take hostages. So are you ready to try my bargain again, or do you think you can wage a war with no army?"

Voldemort glared at Harry, weighing him, calculating.

"I Lord Volde -"

"Ah, Ah, Ah," Harry grinned, and the smile was dark and full of terrors. "I might be a muggle raised idiot, but even I know that you have to use your true name to make it binding. And since you mentioned it, I want to add Hermione and one other, just in case, to the protection."

Voldemort paused for an even longer time, the thick tension building with every silent second.

"I, Tom Marvolo Riddle," he bared his unnaturally sharp, shark-like teeth "swear on my magic, from this day forth, to cause no intentional harm to Harry James Potter, the mudblood Hermione Granger, and one other to be specified later, So mote it be."

"So mote it be."

 _...to me you will always be the noble, selfless boy who risked his life to save a near stranger from a troll._


	6. Chapter 6: Revelations

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to the awesome daithi4377. Thank you so much for your insight.

A/N: Parseltongue now looks like this: {{Hissed aloud}}

Chapter 6: Revelations

Harry hissed a command and the snakes fell away from Snape and Lucius like rain. As they dispersed, Harry tried to say "Thank you" but the words would not translate. He tried and tried until he eventually said something about wishing them warm rocks and sunshine, and plenty of mice to feed their nests. As one, they turned on him, but they were not attacking. Their tongues flicked over him gently, tickling, and their scales were smooth and cool like water, flowing over him and draining away little by little, his bone deep sorrow. Harry understood then, why they had no words for 'thank you', their gratitude was wordless.

{{Call us again if the False Speaker threatens your nest again, we will come.}}

{{False Speaker?}} Harry asked them.

{{Anyone who threatens their own nestmate is no true Speaker!}} There was a near deafening hiss of assent, a few snakes shouted {{False Speaker!}}

"Harry, what are they talking about?" Voldemort's voice was slightly higher pitched than normal. It almost sounded like he was afraid.

"I don't know! I swear I don't know!"

"Like you don't know about the wards?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

There was a long pause where Voldemort's eyes glittered dangerously before he stalked towards Harry with fury laden steps.

Harry tried to back away, but the snakes were behind him. Voldemort grabbed his arm, and shoved his shirt up.

Someone who was not as gaunt as Harry, might have been able to pass the bump off as something else, anything else, but he was undeniably pregnant.

Lucius, Snape, even Voldemort who had put two and two together, were stilled by disbelief.

Harry wanted to pull away, wanted to curl around his stomach and protect it from the world with nothing but his curse scarred hands and knees if he had to, but Voldemort was still gripping his arm, so Harry pulled down his shirt so hard it tore.

That seemed to pull everyone out of their shock.

"What trickery is this?"

"Don't recognize your own spellwork Tom?"

"What have you done!" He waved a hand that encompassed the snakes.

Harry takes a moment to recover from his surprise. That was not a question he would have asked, had their roles been reversed. "What I had to."

"You have turned the snakes against me."

"Not on purpose!"

"They are simple creatures, they do not understand any situation where I would attack my own nest!"

With a sinking feeling, Harry realized why Riddle's line of questioning unsettled him, 'He thinks it's a trick, or that I had done this deliberately to ruin his accord with the snakes.'

Riddle moved as if to strangle Harry.

Intentional harm, Intentional harm. Harry couldn't stop thinking how broad an exception that was. If you murdered someone while you were so angry you could not remember your own name, would the oath consider that unintentional?

The wards however were not so loose. Voldemort pressed so hard against invisible wards that when he finally pulled away there was bloody streaks hanging in the air between them.

The snakes were not idle. Unable to interfere they shifted and rolled like a brewing storm cloud. Sudden flashes of lightning were the snakes that struck the wards in frustration. {{Witness!}} they cried, {{Witness the False Speaker!}}

Voldemort looked at his red hands as if seeing them for the first time. "I have to go speak to Nagini before she hears of this." Voldemort left, his clenched fists leaving a crimson trail behind him.

Dumbledore had told Harry that Voldemort was a broken monster who could not love, that to kill him would be an act of mercy, not murder, and Harry had believed. Yet could a heartless person take such pride in being able to communicate with, in his own words, 'simple creatures?' Now that Harry's own actions might have taken away the only creatures Tom Riddle had likely ever cared for...

Funny how revenge tasted a lot like shame.


	7. Chapter 7: Had I Known

***A helpful reviewer pointed out that I do not have a **disclaimer**. I thought that it was obvious that this is a derivative work aka fanfiction, but they're right, that is not the point. All of the wonderfully familiar characters places and ideas belong to JK Rowling. She is the creative genius, I'm just nobody.

A/N: I listen to my reviewers, the reviews are the highlight of my day. For everyone who doesn't want mpreg, the poll is still up on my profile, I didn't remove it.

* * *

-Chapter 7: Had I Known-

To Severus Snape, Hogwarts was haunted.

Not with ghosts that he could see, he did not mean Peeves, or even the Bloody Baron. He means the way the mere sight of the Whomping Willow will pebble his skin with goose bumps. There is a patch of lawn where he lost the love of his life, that walking past never fails to fill his veins with ice. Of all the places in this accursed school saturated with the ghosts of his youth, he hates the Hospital Wing the most.

Naturally, this is where he finds Albus.

"Albus."

When the brightly robed man turns sharply around, fleetingly sending his long white beard aloft behind him, he _appears_ genuinely surprised to see him; however, you could never tell where the lies ended with Albus. "Severus, my dear boy, it does this old heart good to see you finally putting the past where it belongs."

He taps his chest above his heart for unnecessary theatrics no doubt, but it calls attention to his hands. One of them is still blackened and shriveled.

Severus takes the injured arm into his hands, gently. It does not feel warm as it should, instead it feels cold, cold and dead. "How did this happen Albus, what are you not telling me?"

"What has gotten into you Severus?"

'Harry is at the Dark Lord's stronghold' he wants to say, but something about the situation stays his tongue. Something about the magical exhaustion and the fragile air about the child currently lying oblivious in the Dark Lord's audience chamber. Harry was thinner than last he saw him, and the deep bags under his eyes were new. An illness Albus had said, and yet… The boy knew very little, but the boy did know that the Dark Lord had murdered his parents, had murdered _Lily_. There is a story here and Severus will know it. "I saw a boy in the Muggle World who looked just like Harry. I did not stop him, because I knew that Harry was safe and sound, sleeping off a contagious illness before he joins us here at Hogwarts."

Behind his half-moon spectacles, there is a calculating gleam in Albus's eye, and Severus knows that whatever may come out of his mouth next, it will not be the truth. "You know Harry, impulsive like his father, he grew tired with bed rest and decided to sneak out. Where exactly did you see him by the way?"

"Two months is a long time to recuperate from a non-lethal illness. It is nearly time for the Halloween Feast." ' _I do not believe you'_ Is implied.

Albus does not bristle at the accusation, instead he seems to deflate. He looks his age for once, impossibly old. "I did not lie, the boy is ill, just not with a traditional illness. Harry is with child."

"That idiot boy! He is only sixteen -"

"Calm," Albus raises a weary palm to silence his tirade, "it was not his doing. If you recall, Harry was hit by two unknown spells during the skirmish near his home. At the time, we could find nothing wrong with him. We had thought perhaps the two effects had canceled each other out.

Severus felt his heart jolt at the reminder. 'Skirmish' was apparently Albus' word for near disaster. He had not been told of the attack, and when he had learned of it, he had rushed to find the area _wasted,_ and Harry gone. Potter with his disgusting luck, turned out to be at the Order Headquarters safe, and injured only because the idiot boy had broken away from his rescuers to search for survivors. "I had not heard that ludicrous theory. I would have told you that curses do not work like that. Curses are meant to be permanent."

"They could have been hexes or jinxes."

Snape lets out an derisive snort "The Dark Lord does not use hexes or jinxes."

"Regardless, his condition is malignant, it is killing him."

Severus recalls the skeletal thinness and the absence of the beastly magical aura that usually hung about the child like a mane. "Does he know?"

Albus smiles, but there is very little joy in it. "Of course he knows, but he has inherited his mother's heart and his father's disregard for authority."

"I understand," he says reluctantly, "I will take care of it." His oath to protect the boy's life has never felt so onerous before. He wonders, briefly, if this new child would have had Lily's eyes as well. Severus suppresses a shiver, and barely resists the urge to rub his arms for warmth. Instead he lets his long stride carry him quickly to the exit. He cannot stand to be here a minute more.

"He will not thank you for it." Albus calls after him.

Severus does not bother to turn around "He never thanks me."

Severus disappears around the corner with robes snapping behind him like teeth, but Albus is not alone. Lingering there are the ghosts of three dark haired boys that he had failed. "Forgive me." He whispers to them. "I have so little time left, and Harry must fight." They continue to stare at him with three pairs of accusing eyes. One pair blue, one green, one black.

To Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts is haunted too.


	8. Chapter 8: More Precious than Gold

Chapter 8: More Precious than Gold

Harry looked at the two death eaters in front of him warily. Lucius was smiling, and Snape was frowning. Although Snape always frowned, Harry was certain that they were both hiding their true emotions.

Harry looked around for allies, but the bulk of the snakes had left when Voldemort had exited the room; the snakes bursting through the open doorway like a frothing green river. There was only a mismatched pair of snakes remaining, and they did not look like they wanted to move anytime soon. They were probably enjoying the strange heated floors.

Harry backed out of the room slowly. His eyes did not leave them, and they did not take their eyes off of him. The stalemate continued until Harry, with a touch of magic, slammed the double doors in their faces.

He took a shaky breath. That had gone both better and worse than he had imagined. Better, because he was alive. Worse, because an offer of protection was not the same as an offer of no harm. All they had to do was step aside if the Order came for him and ... Harry brushed his fingers tenderly along the side of his shirt- then came across the torn edges.

It wasn't fair. He had money. Lots of it. If everyone could just stop hunting him for five more months- but Harry was learning that safety was a commodity far more precious than gold.

Harry looked down to see that the two snakes had followed him out. Um. {{"The danger is over, you can go now."}} Harry said, and awkwardly bent down and brushed their scales in a parody of a thank you.

The thick snake with scales in shades of brown let out a staccato hiss that sounded suspiciously like laughter. {{"Ask me again when you do not stink of fear, and I will go."}} Harry didn't feel like arguing, he had never really been afraid of snakes, but the brown snake seemed like someone you didn't want to cross.

{{"What about you?"}} Harry said to the silent tiny grass snake, but the first snake spoke again. {{"This one does not speak, but she was the fastest of those who were here. If there is trouble I cannot handle, she will go and get the others."}}

Harry looked at the little green thing more closely and could see scaring all around its yellow throat. It still felt wrong to talk about the snake as if it wasn't there. {{"Will you go?"}} Harry asked again.

The grass snake wove her body back and forth in what translated in his head as a _very_ strongly worded no.

Harry let out a sigh, and held out a hand. {{"If you insist on staying with me, at least get off the floor, I don't want you to accidentally get crushed."}} The brown snake slid up his outstretched arm, but the grass snake decided to wrap itself around his ankle. Harry could already tell that the smaller snake was going to be trouble. The teeny thing couldn't even talk, yet she somehow still had _attitude_.

He noticed a smear of red on the ground, and then another further away. He ran a hand through his hair. He should probably do something about Riddle. Before he'd even made up his mind about what he could possibly do or say, his feet had carried him outside a shut bedroom door.

{{"Nagini please"}} a broken voice said.

Harry backed away quickly from the door. This felt far too much like prying into Snape's pensieve. He'd sworn that he'd never invade someone's privacy like that again. His back bumped against the opposite wall.

{{They are calling you a false Speaker. I would be shunned for following you}}

Harry frantically felt behind him until he came across a door handle. He twisted it violently and went into the room. He just barely stopped himself from slamming the door.

{{Have we not fought his nest mates together?}}

Harry had forgotten the way he could hear the basilisk through the walls and across floors. Parseltongue was a language of magic, not sound. He shook his head to clear it, now wasn't the time to be wondering about distances. Harry looked around. The bedroom he had entered was mercifully empty. There was an ajar door leading to a bathroom on the far side. He rushed over to It, then shut and locked it behind him.

{{ The enemy nest…}}

Harry turned on all the taps on the bath, and he could hear nothing over the sound of running water. But he'd already heard enough.

He had never dared hope that Riddle would be happy about this, but that was somehow harder to take when Harry knew the man was capable of love, and Riddle clearly loved his snake, dearly.

He absentmindedly ran his hand through the rising fluid. Then kicked off his shoes. He could almost hear what his Aunt Petunia would say if he wasted all this water.

The two snakes curled up in his clothes and Harry frowned down at his rippling reflection. "Don't worry little one. You won't grow up like I did. You will always be surrounded by love. I'll make sure of it." Although he wasn't certain _how_ he'd pull it off. Love was another commodity that could not be bought with gold.

When he slid into the tub, the warm bath eased away aches he had long ignored and forgotten, and he fell asleep humming a lullaby that he'd heard once upon a dream.


	9. Chapter 9: Virgo

A/N: Parseltongue now looks like this: {{Hissed aloud}}

* * *

Chapter 9: Virgo

Harry woke up wearing a strange robe on a strange bed in a strange room.

He automatically looked for his wand and didn't relax until he saw it on a pile of folded clothes at the end of the bed. Harry clamored over.

They were his travel worn clothes, cleaned and freshly pressed. House elves had been here. Harry hadn't meant to fall asleep, he was lucky he hadn't woken up in the dungeons. Did the elves know that he wasn't a guest? Or did they not care? Dobby had made it seem like he was something to the house elves. They could be taking care of him and just…not mentioning it to Voldemort.

Harry quickly got changed and peeked his head into the hallway to get his bearings. There were four plain (for this place) wooden doors on the right wall, directly across the long hall was a more elaborate door that he knew to be Voldemort's room, and the passage that led to the rest of the manor was on the left wall. Harry was...exactly where he had been last night. He looked back into the room and recognized it from this angle. He could also see the brown banded snake asleep under his bed.

{{Some guardian you turned out to be.}}

"Ow!" Harry looked down to find the small grass snake once again wrapped around his ankle.

So, they were sleeping in shifts. Harry changed his estimation of what happened last night to fit with the snakes' obvious vigilance. Either there are a lot of injured house elves or Voldemort or Nagini had been involved.

Harry eyed the door at the end of the hall again. He supposed he needed to get this conversation over with.

-HP-

"The second master suite Potter? Presumptuous."

Riddle waved a negligent hand at Harry's stuttering denial.

"Nagini and I have reached an accord. She will not take the word of the rabble over my own. She will trust her own eyes and nose to see that I am not a False Speaker. To that end you have free reign of the house and kitchens. My followers have been told not to harm you. And you may have your presumptuous rooms. Honestly, you having the second master suite is convenient, as it means you will be less likely to be underfoot. Will all that be acceptable?"

It should be acceptable. To be basically ignored was more than anything Harry had been expecting under the circumstances, but it reminded him, too much, of the Dursleys.

Harry clenched a fist. "Do you need to do a paternity test or something?"

"No, the activation of the heir wards is as good as."

"Then why-"

"I am _not_ responsible for whatever foul experiments resulted in your current state."

"You never ever _asked_ -"

"I should not have to ask! I should have been there! I should already _know_!"

Voldemort walked away from Harry to the end of the room, when he got there, he pounded a fist next to his closet mirror. There were dents in the door that suggested he did this often.

"But you do know, better than me even." Harry continues obliviously.

"Excuse me." Voldemort looked almost comically offended.

"I'm four months along. What happened four months ago?"

"I tried to kill you, you got away, again. The end."

"Not the end."

"Are you suggesting I was memory charmed?"

"No, you shot a spell at me. Whatever that spell was did this." Harry waved a hand at himself, and smiled.

Voldemort was still for a moment. "Get out."

"What?"

"I said GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

Harry slammed Voldemort's bedroom door. And when he got to it, slammed his own room door for good measure. Then he threw himself onto his bed and did not move until the shadows were long from the dwindling sun.

If anyone passing had heard muffled sobs through the door, Harry would have denied it. But of course, no one came by.


	10. Interlude: The last of Her Kind

Interlude: The Last of Her Kind

Hela, as Harry would one day come to call her, was old.

As far as she was concerned, she had no beginning and she had no end. The incident which had taken her voice should have killed her. It had not.

The brown forsaken one who had called himself 'Mischief', (she did not blame him for the deception, the name the other snakes had given him was a heavy one) is telling the Speaker of parseltongue's origin. She listens to the story sadly. There were so many gaps. She was old enough to be able to fill in those gaps, but even if she had been able to speak, the others would not remember. Every new generation of snake was lesser than the last.

She knew why she stayed with this Speaker who always smelled of sadness. This Speaker was kind. This Speaker had _named_ her. He did not seem to know what an honor it was for a snake to have a name, and to have been named by a Speaker... all snakes would know of it. It would not last, they would forget, just as they had forgotten her first name. Still, whether he knew of the honor or not, she would stay.

However, she did not know why she had come.

-HP-

She had heard the call as had all the other snakes. The Speaker had told many snakes when he had only needed to tell one. The boy clearly did not understand his power. So much had been forgotten, so much had been lost.

The winged one which had come to these fields was so much larger than her to have blotted out the sky. When she bowed before joining the others on its back, it stopped her.

{{Your kind has no venom, and does not crush. We do not know why this young Speaker has called, there may be fighting, there may be death. I cannot allow you to come when there would be so little gain.}}

She resisted the urge to lower her second eyelids, which was the snake equivalent to rolling one's eyes. She sped onto its back anyways. The winged one moved to restrain her but was too slow. The other snakes whispered amongst themselves. The black mambas which were known for their speed, eyed her with consideration.

'I do not need such things ' she would have said, had she been able to speak. ' Bite any creature in the right place and they will all fall.'


	11. Chapter 10: The Knights of Walpurgis

Chapter 10: The Knights of Walpurgis

Harry heard the heavy tread of boots and the rustling of many cloaks outside his door.

He grabbed the wand which was never far from his hand, and allowed the brown snake Mischief to wrap around his left arm. Then he pried the door open a crack, hoping to take out a few using it as cover.

His wand fell from nerveless fingers.

The figures wore bone white masks and jet black robes. They were not outside of his door, they were outside of Voldemort's. There was going to be a raid.

Harry knew what he needed to do. He needed to shut his door. He needed to walk back to his bed and lie down while hundreds of people died slow, torturous, horrible deaths.

So why was he picking up his wand? Why was he leaving his room? Hadn't he said that he'd wanted out of this war?

"Tom"

The other figures scrambled away from Harry as if he had the Plague. Or as if he had a massive snake on his arm that was baring its teeth. One figure did not move. He was easy to identify: Voldemort wore no mask.

"I can't just sit here quietly when I know that you're going out there to massacre a bunch of innocent people."

Voldemort stiffened. "I believe I've stated before that Muggles are not people."

"Well to me they are people and should therefore not be slaughtered. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying _convince me_."

"Why should I bother? It seems if I fail to convince you, I have to reevaluate everything, yet if I convince you I gain nothing."

"If you can convince me that you're right, I'll help you." Harry's heart was beating like a hammer against his ribcage but his head was oddly clear, as if he were fighting an actual battle. "After being identified in the ministry, Lucius Malfoy's reputation is in tatters." He ignored the choking sound someone made in the crowd. "You need a new public face. How much smoother would your campaign go if you had behind it Harry Potter's name?"

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at him. "Muggles have no magic and no souls. They are capricious and cruel. They would see us all dead for no other reason than because we are different than them. They would have us cower rather than take our rightful places, have us cower rather than have us even as _equals_." He said the word with distaste. "We who have magic are Earth's chosen. We have a duty to protect our mother Earth from the muggle scourge that is blackening her waters, that is sickening her air, that is tearing into her very flesh to make petty trinkets. We are the Knights of Walpurgis!"

As one, the Death eaters stomped their boots in assent.

Harry thought out his next words very carefully. "And why do you say that muggles have no souls?"

"When they die, they do not leave ghosts as we do."

Harry resisted the urge to pull his hair in frustration. This was going to be harder than he had thought. Where was the pureblood bigotry? If he said that muggles did leave ghosts that you couldn't see, Voldemort could say that maybe they did have souls, but their souls were weaker. And that wasn't much better than saying they had no souls at all.

Harry _could not afford to lose,_ but he was taking too long to think about this, Voldemort was beginning to smile, and Mischief was shifting impatiently on his arm…. Harry stared at Mischief.

"And what does it matter?" Harry said.

"Speak clearly. What does what matter?"

"What does it matter _if_ they have no souls?"

Voldemort looked at him incredulously but Harry pressed on. "By your logic, Nagini also does not have a soul."

For the briefest instant, there was a violent glint in Voldemort's red eyes, but then he looked away. He did not quite manage to sound indifferent when he said, "I suppose snakes also do not leave ghosts when they die."

"She has no soul and yet she still has _value_ does she not?"

Voldemort clenched his fists and said nothing.

"Would you see her harmed for something she lacked through no fault of her own? For something she was born without?"

Voldemort whirled around and put a hand on his door.

"We will continue this discussion tomorrow."

"And the raid, my Lord?" A blank mask said from the towering wall of black robed bodies.

"Postponed." Voldemort snarled.


	12. Chapter 11: Shahrazad

Chapter 11: Scheherazade

The hall was packed. There were a lot of unusual faces milling about. It seemed quite a few death eaters had felt the need to bring along their wives and heirs. He saw a temporary space form near a familiar blonde head and he made his way over.

"Narcissa." He gave her a short nod.

"Severus." She inclined her head.

"What have I missed?" He had been away at Hogwarts. Albus was beginning to wonder why there had been no recent Death Eater activity. The winter holidays provided a much-needed break from toeing around the fact that Harry was effectively stalling the Dark Lord. Severus does not know why he still hesitates to say where Harry is, other than that terrible look Potter had had when he'd first arrived from the Order's 'care.'

"Oh, Severus." She shook her head gently enough that her elegant chiffon knot was not disturbed. "The debates are beautiful. Our Lord speaks elaborate arguments, but Harry's words are simple yet impassioned. I cannot do either justice."

Severus schooled his face to not show his impatience. "Try."

"Well" she paused, "You were here when they debated whether Muggles had souls, correct? Our Lord won't admit it, but everyone knows Harry won that discussion.

"Then Our Lord won whether Muggles were pests harming the Earth. He Likened their wonton consumption of resources to a plague of locusts, and he called their pollution a 'planet wide blight'.

"A week ago, they tied on whether having magic makes us superior."

"Truly?" Severus felt his eyebrows lift. Even the most vehement muggle supporters would admit that having magic is better than having no magic.

"Harry said that muggles have many ways to decide if one animal is considered more successful than another animal. One of them is adaptability to a changing environment and another is population size, and between muggles and wizardkind, who is more numerous?"

Severus was speechless for a moment. He would have given anything to have seen the Dark Lord's face when Harry had said _that_.

"Then how did the Dark Lord tie?" He asked, but the hall was falling silent.

Lord Voldemort had entered. He was alone.

"Harry will not be joining us today, he is too fatigued to move from his bed."

There was an uneasy quiet.

Narcissa spoke up next to him. "You need not look so concerned my Lord, that is to be expected late in a pregnancy."

Those nearby edged away. Severus stayed by her side. Narcissa Malfoy was an old friend, and she was not a death eater. He did not know how much she had been told about the situation but evidently, she had made assumptions. The Dark Lord was not concerned about Harry's health.

The crowd parted before the Dark Lord as he strode towards them.

She continued in the relative privacy being in the Dark Lord's presence afforded. "The last three months are tiring but usually not dangerous."

There was a heavy pause before Voldemort said, "Harry is six months along."

"Forgive me for saying so my Lord, but isn't he rather large for 6 months?"

"Harry is thin. It makes him look further along than he is, do you think otherwise?"

"I cannot say" she hedged "What says the healer?"

"I offered to send for a healer, but Potter declined." The Dark Lord's face was shadowed when next he said, "I think he is attempting to hide something."

Severus forced himself to remain still, and slid his growing alarm into his occulemency pools. The time to wait and see was over. The old manipulator must have told the truth.

He hushed the disquieting thoughts that threatened to disturb the unnatural calm which had settled over his mind. Potter is a child he told himself. Children don't understand consequences, children think that they are invincible. When he is older he will thank me for saving his life.

 _'He will not thank you'_ a memory whispered. _  
_

I know.


	13. Chapter 12: Blame it on me

Chapter 12: Blame it on me

"...while you mope about for your good for nothing godfather."

Harry's automatic indignation on Sirius' behalf caught him by surprise. He hadn't felt anything since coming back to the Dursleys, but now he could feel the anger eating away at the dull film of grief that weighed down all his thoughts lately.

He looked at Aunt Petunia again, and blinked. Brown roots were peeking through her dyed blonde hair. She was never that careless.

"Aunt Petunia?"

She glared at him for a moment before a crease of worry he also hadn't noticed 'til now was suddenly gone from her forehead. "I said go get the groceries. Since I'll be busy for the rest of the day, you may keep the change just this once."

Harry eyed the list and the money she had handed him. There wouldn't be much left, there would barely be enough to get a cheap candy bar, but it was still the nicest she had ever been.

"Don't you dare show your face in this house until you can do your chores properly you hear me!"

 _No._

He couldn't help but give her a beaming smile even though it made her scowl. 'His Aunt was being nice to him. His Aunt was _finally being nice to him_!' He left the house at a run.

 _Stop!_

Harry shook his head before continuing on his way to get the groceries. He had just now gotten the oddest sense of de ja vu.

 _Turn back!_

This time his foot froze mid step, but his momentum carried him over the property line of number four Privet Drive anyways.

 _they're waiting just beyond the wards. It'll be a blood bath. For all things holy, STAY IN THE WARDS!_

Harry's eyes didn't even have time to widen before a series of explosions destroyed his neighborhood and everyone he had grown up with.

Harry woke with a scream that was muffled by someone's hand covering his mouth.

Harry was too wrapped up in the memory turned nightmare to be alarmed. He could feel the flames licking at his face, hear the moans of people dying…"All those people, dead, because of me. I killed them."

"Who are these people you are talking about? It is my understanding that your recent revoltingly Gryffindor actions have saved countless lives."

Harry's voice was dead, his eyes flitted on things only he could see. "I left the wards. I should have known better, they had sent dementors after me the summer before. They would never have been killed if I hadn't been there. They were all secondary. _Spares_." ' _Kill the spare.'_

"What have I told you about your inflated sense of self-worth?"

Harry gripped Snape's robes, seeing him and not seeing him. "Tell me I killed them! Tell me I killed Sirius!"

' _Break me, as I deserve to be broken.'_

"I. will. _not_."

Harry's feverish thoughts released him. He blinked. "Snape? What are you doing in my rooms?"

"Potter, come. I'm here to take you away."

That's fine by Harry. He's sick of these vast, beautiful, _lonely_ rooms that were either filled with the silences of words that should have been said, but weren't, or too loud words that should never have been said, but were. Harry tries to sit up. He staggers when his feet take his own weight and Snape puts a supporting arm under him. "I cannot levitate you. You have to leave under your own power."

The last few minutes were fuzzy, but Harry seems to bizarrely trust Snape so they are almost to the door before he thinks to ask, "Where are we going?"

"To the Order."

Harry yanks his arm out of Snape's grip.

"Why can't any of you understand that this is my baby too, my child?"

"Spare me your Gryffindor stupidity. Have you _seen_ the Dark Lord? That thing gestating in you is more likely to be an abomination than human."

"Don't you _ever_ call a child of mine a Freak." Harry's voice comes out colder than he has ever heard it. "Leave now, or I will scream."

They glare at each other for a moment, then a minor miracle happens; Snape looks away first. "I could silence you."

Harry lets himself relax. Despite the threat in the words, Snape's voice is surprisingly without malice, as if he is giving a lecture -or a warning.

Harry has gotten good at comebacks. "Do you really want to take the risk that the wards will cut out your tongue?"

In the moonlight Harry cannot be sure, but he thinks he sees Snape's lip twitch upwards a fraction.

Harry tilts his head to the side, listening, then he hisses a response. He begins to look around and sees Mischief mid-lunge near the door. "I appreciate you not hurting him" Harry says while he reaches down and with two fingers, breaks the powerful stasis charm Snape must have put on the snake.

Harry feels Snape's stare boring into the side of his head. "What?"

"May I ask what communication just transpired?"

"What? Oh, my other snake had just found Nagini and they were heading back here. I told them that everything was ok."

"I was unaware that you had two."

"Yeah, I guess the other one always stays out of sight." Harry shrugged "She gets help if I need it."

"I specifically chose a time when both Nagini and the Dark Lord were otherwise occupied at distance. I believe Nagini is on the grounds hunting currently.

Harry shrugged again. "Distance doesn't really matter, especially if the snake is upset. Which was kinda annoying until I learned how to specify who I was talking to and how to block out certain snakes."

"Let me summarize," Snape says. "you are capable of summoning any number of snakes to you at any time. If you are for some reason incapacitated, you have an unseen snake that can call aid in your stead, and you can gather intelligence at long distances, particularly if the snake in question is in duress."

"Well, yes. But I would like to add that I can't make them do anything. They are free-willed creatures."

Snape stares at Harry for a long time before speaking again. "Forgive my earlier hasty actions," there is a short pause before he says simply, "Potter."

Harry is so shocked he sits back down on his bed heavily. Did Snape just apologize to him? "What?" He croaks out.

"I was … concerned about your health." Snape says, which just makes Harry even more confused.

"No, I meant go back to the part where you apologized, why?"

"You did not seem overly upset, but I wanted to make sure there was no lingering resentment. Frankly Potter, you have become quite terrifying."

Harry feels like laughing. He lies back down to let a dizzy spell pass. "In case you hadn't noticed, I can barely move."

"You cannot see yourself clearly. Setting aside the issue of the serpents, you cannot be disarmed; your wandless magic is formidable. Your oration skills are such that you can likely gather your own followers. Many of the Death Eaters respect you, even if they disagree with you. Despite my careful planning, at any point in this evening I was at your mercy."

All this confusion is making him queasy. He vomits into a bucket that suddenly appears in front of him, and the bucket vanishes when he settles back down.

"You are clearly not well. Would you at least allow me to take a look?" Snape says as he slowly takes out his wand.

"No!" Harry says and throws out a hand.

Harry's hand is racked with tremors as he struggles to hold it up, but his shield does not waver. Practicing this charm had become almost an obsession. By now it is large enough to brush the ceiling, and solid enough to leave indentations where it touches the sheets. Nothing would be getting through this shield, save maybe a killing curse.

Snape stared open mouthed before a resolute expression stole over his face. "Lower your shield."

Harry jerks his head to the left, then to the right. He curls a protective hand around his stomach.

Snape's eyes follow the movement. "Harry, the blood wards would eviscerate me. You are safe; lower your shield."

Harry finally whispers "…the Order," his voice cracks "Lupin."

"…I do not know what it is that you are referring to. Although I am in the Order, the other members make it abundantly clear that I am not with them. I was not even told of your disappearance until I enquired after you. Whatever you seem to think I will do, I will not. I am only going to check to see what has gone wrong."

Snape pauses as if he knows that will not be enough. "I have come to respect you. Therefore, I will respect your decision."

Harry shakes his head again, ' _even if said decision leads to my death?_ ' he wondered, but he must trust Snape somehow because Harry hesitantly, reluctantly, millimeter by millimeter, lowers his shield.

Then Snape raises his wand.


End file.
